how can they get away with the word.. unlimited?

player · 17 Jun 2006 at 13:58

I imagine that this has been done to death, but since I took up my last contract over 12months ago I have began looking at the various offers by ISPs. I notice just about all now have two tiers regarding bandwidth... capped and 'unlimited'

I remember the whole whohar a while back, but it never really bothered me as I wasn't using the internet as much back then.

How on earth can they justify using the work 'unlimited' when the services are clearly anything but? Do they get around it by giving you ‘unlimited’ bandwidth but reserve the right to cancel your contract should to repeatedly use over their stated limit in the T&Cs?

kitfit1 · 17 Jun 2006 at 15:04

They are breaking the law, and have been for ages. The problem is that the regulator is a complete toothless waste of space. The only regulator that is toying with the idea of having a go at them is the Advertizing Standards Authority, and they will win. But you can bet your bottom Dollar, at the courtroom door the ISP's will back down. In the meantime of course "joe public" will have been hoodwinked all the way to his wallet.

Phil99 · 17 Jun 2006 at 15:51

No idea how they get away with it, Eclipse offer "Unlimited" broadband packages which just so happen to have traffic shaping and peak time usage limits so they're anything but unlimited with regards to how much you can use it or the speed you can use it at :confused:

ste_bla · 17 Jun 2006 at 20:14

It is; Unlimited as in amount of time connected..

tolien · 18 Jun 2006 at 00:07

kitfit1 said:
The only regulator that is toying with the idea of having a go at them is the Advertizing Standards Authority, and they will win.

The ASA don't care about what an ISP claims on their own website. It's already been tried, and the ASA didn't want to know.

player · 18 Jun 2006 at 12:00

ste_bla said:
It is; Unlimited as in amount of time connected..

So are can you only connect to capped packages for a certain length of time throughout the month? :/

Phil99 · 18 Jun 2006 at 15:03

player said:
So are can you only connect to capped packages for a certain length of time throughout the month? :/

No, you stay connected but can only use a certain amount of data, most capped packages reduce the speed after you pass the data cap.